The Gisborne Chronicles

CHR6/CH2-A Lightning Strike, A Flood, and News of Auriel

Guy was sitting beneath a willow, when his eldest daughter came to fetch him for supper, the same willow where Glenys had found his darling after Rowena's attack. The dark humours that had beset the place had been cleansed by their enduring love for each other, and it had become a favoured spot for their frequent romantic trysts.

They had never enjoyed passion beneath the soft shade of its branches, wanting it to remain solely for those times when a more gentle and loving embrace was needed. As he sat there, he could almost feel her soft lips upon his mouth, and he lifted his fingers there as if to prolong her imagined touch.

He rocked back and forth, his own arms about his own shoulders as if to comfort himself, as unbidden tears fell gently downwards to the ground.

Whilst he found his children and their Aunt to be a gentle and benign presence in his life, he was bereft at the lack of Auriel's loving companionship. As the days had passed, the pain had not lessened, it had merely changed to a dull ache in the centre of his chest.

It did not escape him that this was where his heart was lodged, and so it seemed appropriate that his heartache was felt in the same spot.

When in the company of his children, not wishing them to be downcast, he would smile at their games, quarrels and other such childish things, much as he had always done, but in the way of all little ones, they seemed to feel his sadness.

They had ceased to ask on their Mama's return some weeks into her absence, and he envied them that they could put her memory aside so easily. That they loved their Mama was abundantly clear in their actions, especially when they sought his loving arms, but they never mentioned her by name, almost as if they knew it would pain him.

He told himself that when she came back to him, he would tell her again that with or without more children, he would never cease to love and want her.

"If I could only reach her mind with my own, " he said to himself in desperation, "I could beg her to return to me, but the distance is too great, and how could I take the hope from her, she sets such store by this Gathering of witches, that they will help her to overcome her fears. How could I not have known of her terror, when in my selfishness I got her with child again and again."

But he heard no answer, only the sighing of the wind.

Then came a startling event which, for a short while, cast all thoughts of Auriel from his mind. The family had taken supper, the little ones had been sent to their beds, and the twins were playing chess in the parlour.

It had been another stifling hot day, and the doors and windows had all been thrown wide, but no breath of air could be felt. Aunt Gwyneth was taking a little wine, as was her habit, and she had poured for Guy a goblet of mead.

The storm broke suddenly, and without warning. The first clap of thunder caused the house to tremble on its very foundations, and they heard the clatter of the two chimney pots as they fell into the yard.

"The windows!" cried Aunt Gwyneth, moving rapidly towards the stairs," we must close them fast, and the inner shutters! or the glass may shatter over the children. Gheraint moved his bed under the window last evening the better to feel any cooling breeze!"

"Do it!" said Guy, "I see Hywell in the lane, we must look to the beasts that they are safely inside. The yard was starkly lit by forked lightning as he spoke, and he could hear the cries of terrified horses as they kicked against their stalls.

"I must look to Lucifer," he said to Hywell, " if he has taken fright, as I believe he has, he will kick himself free, and make off. Look to the bull, get him into the barn if you can, if not, leave him to roam in the meadow, he is not pegged, he will doubtless know the safest spot to take shelter."